This month, the IAMSE Publications Committee review is taken from the article titled Teaching Skills Training for Pre-Clinical Medical Students Through Weekly Problem-Based Learning Teaching Topic Presentation and Directed Feedback, published in Medical Science Educator (October 18, 2023) by Gregory Schreck, Dale Netski, Edward Simanton, and Rosalie Kalil.
During undergraduate medical education, students are often expected to take on teaching roles such as presenting medical topics, educating patients, or discussing research articles. However, most curricula do not provide formal instruction to help students develop effective teaching skills or pedagogy. This gap highlights the need to evaluate interventions designed to strengthen students’ knowledge and foster their teaching abilities.
This article addresses this need by introducing an instructional video mini-series designed to help first-year medical students become more effective at teaching problem-based learning (PBL) content to their PBL group members. The videos covered topics such as developing clear learning objectives, aligning material to the learner’s level, fostering engagement, connecting lessons to real-world applications, and selecting appropriate resources for lesson design. To evaluate the impact, the research team developed a rubric for PBL faculty facilitators to assess students’ knowledge in these areas as they presented content to their peers.
Key results showed a significant improvement in student PBL teaching scores, which persisted throughout the study duration. Facilitators’ qualitative feedback of those presenting PBL content indicated positive growth across all five domains after students watched the instructional videos. Student survey responses were positive with respondents strongly agreeing or agreeing with most survey items. Based on these results, the authors suggested future work should explore the transferability of these skills to teaching contexts beyond PBL.
The findings and implications of this study are relevant to a wide range of medical educators and administrators, including faculty involved in PBL curriculum design, PBL facilitators, those seeking to enhance peer-assisted learning, and educators focused on student professional development. As active learning and peer-assisted learning approaches continue to be implemented and expanded upon in undergraduate medical education, developing effective student teaching skills for students will only continue to grow in importance.
Matthew McMillin, PhD
Associate Professor
Huffington Department of Education, Innovation & Technology
Department of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine